Just thought I’d write a quick hobby musing about the Kingdom of Equitaine list I’ve been running in 2.0 so far, how it’s been doing and how the hot fix has affected it.

I have a large KoE force all painted up but some are definitely painted than others and I’m a stickler for bringing along the nice looking soldiers to the battle. So after looking at the KoE Army book for ages trying to come up with a list that I could use given the models that I have I settled upon the following list.

The basis of my army revolved around 3 large blocks which woulf hopefully do all the hard work. The Damsel was there to help the Knight buses hit more reliably, especially with the Hereditary Spell and the buffs from Divination. The Duke’s role was to help protect the Knight of the Realm block by soaking up attacks on the unit and ensuring that more knight survive to attack back. The Peasant Crusaders acted as a mini anvil until the Knights could get in and smash whatever was attacking them. The Yeoman were just chaff and the Bowmen and scorpions were there just for a bit of ranged threat.

Going into my games the plan was to push all 3 knight blocks around together and charge whatever was in their way but it’s amazing how rarely I ever stuck to the game plan. I found myself struggling against enemy chaff as the Bowmen just weren’t doing the job and the Magic Missiles of Divination were just not going off. The problem with running a predominant buff lore is that your opponents know that they can just let the buffs go off if the units being buffed aren’t in combat, they then just dispel the missiles and you’ve wasted a magic phase. That is not to say that Divination has been completely useless, when the knight blocks are in combat it helps tremendously but the shining star really is the Breath of the Lady, what a fantastic Hereditary Spell, it helps offensively and defensively so it’s really useful.

With the redesgned Magic Phase she is much less prone to blowing up whole units of knights now due to some unlucky rolling, so Damsels are definitely back in if you ask me!

The Knight blocks each faired differently in their own way. The Knights of the Quest are very good at the grind but as with all knights they feel each and every loss, having a unit of 12 is great but as soon you begin to lose some knights their effectiveness is immediately reduced. So even though they are good at the grind there is little that they can go toe to toe with and win a war of attrition. Obviously they are not there to be fighting hordes of infantry so they shouldn’t be winning those long fights, I had them fight a hydra and some Chaos Knights. Against the Hydra they took 3 rounds of combat to kill it at the end of which there was about 3 knights left. Against the Chaos Knights they won but again, there wasn’t a whole lot left of them by the end. The Knights of the Quest should be used as a very expensive hammer, used for precision strikes of the perfect enemy and they better break them or they are toast (in fact, apply that to every KoE knight).

The Aspirants were great on the charge and then instantly lost any threat they once posed after that. I love having a big unit of 15 as they look amazing but 15 knights leaves a big flank that any smart opponent will wait to be shown and then pounce. That has always been the problem with the Lance formation, maybe it’s time to abandon it on large units. They might work better in a 12, 6x2.

The Knights of the Realm were the bedrock for me and combined with the Duke they just didn’t die at all. The games I won or drew were down to this unit not being destroyed and maintaining a huge amount of points.

I think this unit always faired best because I found myself having to sacrifice my other 2 knight blocks to protect them from flank charges. That’s because I used my Yeoman poorly and sacrificed them far too early. I always try and send them out to go Warmachine hunting or to harass the flanks with their 5 bow shots, as if that will make any difference. They should sit behind my knights waiting to heroically dive in front of a threatening unit. Also I should have paid the 2 points per model to give them a 4+ armour save, definitely worth the points to keep them alive long… [Read More]

Finished my Knights of the Grail, which means I finally have a heavy hitter for my KoE to fight nasty things with. Yay?

Whole squad, as of now. Dunno if I'm gonna run 'em like this or in two "darts". Also in my head apparently Magical Attacks = Glowing Enery Lances? I am quite okay with that being the case.

Champion. her face turned out really horribly, sadly don't know how to fix it. It's pretty much this bad...
Lady of Solna, a very suburban kind of place, it also houses three of our royal palaces, for those that like to look at rich parasites in pretty clothes. It is part of Stockholm, our capital, which is large enough that it actually extends beyond its own municipal borders.
The knight of Skinskatteberg (skinsack mountain, possibly a robot name?). It boasts one of the worlds most mineral-rich mining fields and Cerium was discovered here in 1803. Not too shabby for a little mining town of 4500 people.
Arms are specifically mining tools known as "Mountain Irons" for which I do not know the english name, not merely hammers
He also has a pretty cool hat

The best knight ever hails from Storfors, a town of just over 2000, it os one of Sweden's least populated municipalities and specializes in manufacturing heavy wall pipes.
But that doesn't matter when you got an awesome set or arms! This might just be the best patterns I've even done for this army and I'm extremely pleased to be able to pull it off as well as I did. Checkers patters are awesome, shame I don't think any other municipalities use them
Also has a nice hat, in fact all Knights of the Grail got awesome hats (hats serve as a secondary measure of rank for me).

The knight of Salem, a town that is known to have existed since at least 1283 when it is mentioned in a royal letter. Amusing it was known as Slem (Slime) for a couple of hundred years. It was probably founded somewhere in the 9th or 10th century.
It has a pretty nicepaired cottage from the 15th century.
Also I don't know why but painting heraldic fishes just makes me happy. Look how cute and happy they always are!
Had a pretty boring hat to start with so I made him some horns so he fit in better. They're kinda fragile (fell of twice while painting).
The leaves are supposed to be from clinging ivy. The fish is unspecified, but cute.

The only set of arms so far in my army that couldn't actually pass as proper medieval heraldry, the arms of Stenungssund feature something so interesting and strange as a stylised Hydrocarbon chain which is really unique and pretty cool.
I think I really like just how different this one looks.
The town is Sweden's greatest producer of polyethylene so the arms are well chosen. The arms were registered in 1977 and are a magnificent example of a more "modern" heraldry.
Also the knight seems to have caught a arrow in his chest, sucks to be him.

Also the are has come iron age burials, in which have been discovered roman artifacts, which is neat.

Sadly I couldn't really do Sotenäs arms justice but they feature a very cute flatfish.
Just as look at the original, its so cute! Also kinda confused. But then Flatfish are very confusing fish, aren't they?

Also I have now run out of Spoons, so Sotenäs don't get any cool facts. Deal. [Read More]

The standard flies the colours of Knivsta, which is a pretty boring place, but at least it has a really cute 14th century church.
The knights of Klippan (The Cliff) blows the charge. His horse is probably pretty strong from running up and down the large hill that gives the town its name.
I was actually surprised how well the arms of Klippan translated to the knight, it's quite striking.
The unit champion hails from Lindesberg which until' 2007 held an annual punk festival. Sadly no more.
I quite like how he turned out, will probably stand in for a Questing character, should I need one.
Also quite happy with the knight of Malå which has a very nice set of arms. It's quite the tiny town but still manages to hold a annual winter festival.
Another pretty nice one. The arms of Kungsör are very pretty but quite striking.
The town has long been a favorite place of several of our royalties; Karl IIX killed his first bear in the area, thus the crown on the arms.
The knight of Köping, a city mostly known for the excellent tv-series I en annan del av Köping (In another part of Köping) which respectfully follows the lives of 4 mentally handicapped persons in Köping.

The knight of Ljusnarsberg which has a very striking arms which I sadly totally failed to do justice.
Probably the worst knight of the set.
The knights of Laxå (Salmon River) which strangely doesn't have a salmon in the arms.
It is reportedly Sweden's poored municipality and the only one in the nation with net debt.
The knight of Ockelbo which is probably the coolest arms in the unit.
Sadly I was unable to do the absolutely insane divide on the arms properly.'
Just look at this insanity! No way I could paint that beauty in 28mm!
The divide is made up of Fir branches and is unique, all other Fir divides beeing the tops of the tree instead, like this

But Ockelbo has a really cool arms and even inspired the arms of HRH Daniel Westling, the husband of the swedish heir apparent, Crown Princess Victoria.

One can see the Ockelbo-inspired arms in the middle of Daniel's Coat of arms
So I think that's really cool [Read More]

Another Duke for my KoE forces.
Wanted to do something very different, very much less colourful than my other knights. To my surprise he ended up almost (but not quite) monochrome.
Quite pleased with him.
Original lance was badly made of very soft metal and broke in assembly, it was also very short: barely reached beyond the horse's head.
I replaced it with a wire spear which looks much better and is much more sturdy.
Arms are those of the swedish Special Forces.

He's also the husband to my Damsel, which is why she wears his' heraldry on her cape. [Read More]

Managed to snag a classic Paladinmodel over on Facebook.
She's intended to be a BSB, but that would require me to make a banner and my freehanding skills are.... lacking. To say the least.
Really nice model, excellent proportion for a GWmodel.

Fun bit of trivia: This is supposed to be the first model sculpted by the legendary Michael Perry with his left hand, after losing his right to a cannonmisfire (his last two-handed sculpt was the legendary Green Knight, one of the finest modelGW ever released).

Since she has pre-sculpted heraldry, I painted her in the arms of Normandie, as no swedish heraldry has two lions like that.

EDIT: An no, I didn't forget to paint the lance. Its just that my knight roll with black lances. [Read More]

So my Battle Standard Bearer got done. If all goes well he'll be the only GW model in the entire army, but I simply couldn't find a alternative that I liked.

And I don't even really like him. Look at him! He's covered in a million tiny damn shields (actually, about 20)! Super annoying to paint in an interesting and non-repetetive way.
In the end I decided that, as my BSB he should be the herald of my forces and to that end he carries the arms of all my 5 characters (two don't exist yet, those two are a project for next month )and all my 15 Knight of the Realm (Knight of the Quest are wanderers and not part of the Dukes' regular forces, they just show up, so they're not represented. Knight Forlorn are suffering under a punishment for dishonour and thus don't deserve to be there either.) to properly proclaim the honour and glory of The Lady and Equitaine to enemy forces.

As are all my knights, he too is the lord of a real-life swedish municipality, this time it is Kalix, which is latin for "chalice", i.e. the Grail and thus perfect as the arms of a BSB [Read More]

And finally done!
These are myKNight of the Realm, not a supergood unit but very traditional
Models are again Fireforge Templar Knights.Most of the pennants and other flappy things came with the unit, three I had to make myself because I ran out of the ones on the sprue.
The Command Group is lightly converted, otherwise everything is from the box.

The Knight of Hidden Flame, lord of Bjuv. Arms allude to the mining industry and show a mining torch, sunk into a mine shaft.

The Knight of the Oaken Leaves, lord of Flen. The cross on the arms alud eto the important railway and the oak leaves to the beautiful nature of Flen.

Knight of the Crown of Horns, lord of Åre. The wedge alludes to a popular skiing mountain and the horns of the moose alludes to the yearly moose hunt, in which a fair number of cows, hunting dogs and sometimes hunters and/or innocent bystanders are shot. And a lot of moose.

Knight of the Crowned Swan, lord of Ovanåker (pop. 212!). The arms allude to the beautiful swan lakes of the area.

The Knight of the Mountain Sun, lord of Älvsbyn. Arms show the local river (the blue line under the yellow, rounded mountains), a local mountain (Dog Mountain) and the sun shining down on a mineral wealth of (non-esistant but alluded to in the "Carta Marina") gold.

His friend, KNight of the Beacon, lord of Huddinge. Arms show a viking-age warning beacon/navigational beacon that is supposed to have given name to the area.

The Knight of the Harrowed Field. Lord of Färgelanda. Arms are self-explanatory and show the ancient harrowagricultural tool. A love his arms, looks so cool and so very differet from all the rest. Well done, Färgelanda!

I don't have a fancy name for this guy, lord of Boxholm. The fact that his arms include both a risen goat and a iron mark (often used as a mask of maskulinity in modern times) and the fact that a common euphemism in sweden for a horny person, especially a elder male is "Kåtbock", lit. "Randy Goat" is pretty funny.

The KNight of Hospitlity, lord of Gislaved. The arms show the traditional signs of an inn, one such of some importance was formerly situated in the area.

And the last two dudes/dudettes. The one in blue with the crosses cross is the lord of Täby.The cross comes from a viking rune-carved stone in the area.
Sharing the same theme, but of far older lineage, the lord of Krokom uses a petroglyph river and moose as his arms. Which I think we'll all agree is a very neat idea for a coat of arms. Really like that one.

And that is that. I have a damsel on foot left to paint, otherwise it's all ID's from her eon out until the end of the month, when I get my salary and can but more kniggits [Read More]